


Friends of Old

by Moonrose91



Series: Ice and Steel [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies)
Genre: F/M, I am playing hectic with mythologies, It is fun, Loki is...Loki, M/M, mention of past self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:52:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moonrose91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic is a tricky thing. There is chaos, and there is reason. Magic comes in all forms.</p>
<p>Only the most powerful can see it all before them and not go mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends of Old

Loki is not used to being alone during a pregnancy.

Five months in, showing as if she were eight months because she’s fine boned, and she’s lonely. Hela can only come so often and, while Jormund is lovely and all, magic is taxing while she’s pregnant and…Fenrir is elsewhere, for now. He has not yet incurred Odin’s wrath and been locked up, and Vali is Vali and still hasn’t forgiven Loki for the spell trapping him as a teenager, his magic growing, but his body unable to hold it, and he doesn’t realize how that protects him from Odin’s wrath.

A constant protection that he couldn’t give his other children, but could give Vali and he (she, whatever) didn’t give a _damn_ about how Vali had reacted afterwards.

Usually, he was cuddled against whoever had gotten him pregnant and, usually, that partner died, or left, leaving Loki alone with the child.

This was the first time Loki had ever left the partner, because he had recognized the feeling in his chest as _love_ , and he could not allow that to happen again.

Love had given him Hela, beautiful and bright, only to have his love spurn him for not giving him a perfect child.

So, aside from the first four he had, the rest he had shifted and changed, used his magic to make them safe, placing them into safety.

One couple managed to make his son more pompous then Thor, but he became tempered as he learned Migardian Magic.

Loki could take pride of a son, even if he had no hand in raising him.

But, the fact remained that he/she (it got bad when he got confused over his real gender, but was going to be settling on ‘she’ until such time as he was no longer a she) was alone.

Loki stared out her window, eyes watching the park as children played on an expanse of green and she smiled, even as the smell of desert and forest and mountain filled her nose. “Hello Coyote,” she greeted softly, once the soft sound of paws began to click across her hardwood floors.

A heavy weight settled in her lap and Loki didn’t look away, even as she scratched behind his ears.

_“I was told by a reliable source that you were pregnant once more. I am not sure, due to the melancholy that hangs around you like a shroud, palatable even to the densest of humans, if congratulations are in order or not,”_ Coyote stated, his voice a deep timber within Loki’s mind.

Normally, such an intrusion would have Loki snarling, but Loki merely quirked her fingers slightly to scratch just above his eyes.

“I’ve never been alone before,” she admitted softly.

Coyote let out a soft sound that could not be produced by a coyote and Loki looked down at him.

“And, of course, you got more powerful with time,” Loki muttered and Coyote laughed at that, carefully removing his head from Loki’s lap.

_“What will you do?”_ he asked and Loki shrugged.

“She is half-Migardian. Unless she comes into her heritage at a young age, or ever, she will be fine with a Migardian family,” Loki answered softly.

_“What if you kept your pup?”_ Coyote asked, even as below, one of Loki’s clones fought with the Avengers.

“No,” Loki hissed, eyes gleaming with rage and Coyote didn’t even twitch as the fire in the fireplace jumped up.

_“Chaotic, there. But…stronger. I wonder why?”_ Coyote questioned.

Loki gave a shrug and watched as the clone kept the fight far from the park.

_“You are different, when you are with child. Different when you are breaking your own heart,”_ Coyote stated, getting away with saying things Loki had cut tongues out for.

Coyote always could, his willingness to teach Fenrir always softening Loki towards the Trickster of Migard.

Loki, in kinder moments, called him Knowledge Bringer.

When not being so kind, Loki called him Death’s Herald, for his Knowledge brought both good and ill to Migard.

As he said, often, ‘I pick carefully, but even I know not if they will cultivate the knowledge like a hearth fire, or set the forest alight.’

“Yes, because I would do anything for my children. Even rip out my own heart. Almost did, once. Jormungand bit him through, however, and swallowed him down before I managed to get to it, but he panicked _so_ over the blood pouring from around my nails,” Loki answered.

Coyote stared and settled on the carpet that was before the hearth.

Loki had expected him for a while and made sure to keep a spot for him always.

Silence fell over the pair, an old familiar one. Loki did not have many friends and he enjoyed the rare company that the others occasionally settled with him. _“How would you like to learn how to protect your children better?”_ Coyote questioned his voice soft and unexpected.

Loki stared at him, ignoring his clone’s cackles before he disappeared, the time release on the spell breaking off.

“You said you wouldn’t teach me anything. You said I was too chaotic, that that was my lot, that it could never change,” Loki stated, voice pained.

She had asked once and only once.

_“Even chaos can be channeled, as the big green one down there proves,”_ Coyote answered.

“You only take one student a generation,” Loki pointed out, even as Coyote stood.

_“I make exceptions. And this generation’s student has…exceeded everything. She is a Hearth Fire,”_ Coyote answered calmly.

Loki glances and wonders who it is Coyote is thinking on so fondly. Whoever it is must be young, must be special.

Loki has a feeling, when she dies of old age (for Coyote will not allow her to die before then, as protective as Loki of her brood when it comes to students Coyote loves as if they were his pups), he will be the one comforting.

He would offer to change her, make her immortal, but Coyote will not accept such a thing. She would have take a mantel to remain on Migard and Trickster is already taken, meaning she would have to turn herself around to become what is needed.

And Coyote would never forgive Loki if that happened to one of his Pups.

“What would you teach me?” Loki asked softly.

_“Everything,”_ Coyote stated and Loki stared openly at that.

He had forgotten that Coyote was all or nothing.

“When do we start?” Loki questioned.

_“Now. That child of yours will be a handful, will keep you grounded. You might not become a Forest Fire,”_ Coyote answered.

Loki just agreed, pretending this didn’t terrify him.

Because he knew how Coyote would sigh over his Forest Fires, wondering where _he_  had gone wrong, never blaming his students.

And Loki didn't want to be one of the reasons his best friend stared off into the distance, eyes dead to the world, contemplating _why_.

Maybe the child would be less of a reason than Coyote himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Coyote is just a Trickster who brought Fire to Man, according to a legend that I can't find, right now who...looks like a coyote. Just, I think, bigger, or maybe just seems bigger (there is a distinction between Old Man Coyote and Coyote, so I don't think they are the same person, but I've been wrong before).
> 
> In this verse, he is the Trickster of Migard (like Loki is the Trickster of Asgard...there is, like, a whole little Club of Tricksters in this Verse and they talk all the time...and NO, I will not write that, because usually it is just pranks on each other with very few serious talks), and he taught Fenrir magic when Loki asked, because Loki himself was forbidden by Odin to teach Fenrir magic.
> 
> I feel so odd.


End file.
